Study Group
by fardreamer333
Summary: Our youngest dwarves are just trying to survive college life. One shot, drabble. T for a few words. AU


**Note: Hey there! Just a one shot that I wrote while avoiding doing my English essay. Hope you like it! I don't own Tolkien's or Peter Jackson's characters, I just like pretending that they're sitting at the table across from me :)**

Kili walked through the automatic doors of the student center, pausing for a moment so as not to walk into them as they stuck for half a second. Avoiding a couple of students hanging a 'witty' handmade poster that read "Come to the game this Friday! Watch our boys SLAY the North County DRAGONS," he tromped over to the cafeteria line. Kili plucked up a granola bar, an energy drink, and (after digging around in his pocket to make sure he had enough loose change) a sticky pink donut as well.

He paid for his food at the register, handing over his three dollars and twenty five cents in quarters and nickels to a ruddy faced ginger behind the counter. The man's hands were pudgy and sweaty, and his apron was stained with red and brown and bore a little tarnished silver name tag that read 'Hello, my name is BOMBUR (in all sloppy caps hand writing).'

Kili muttered a thank you and headed over to the other end of the student center where the much more chic (and correspondingly more expensive) café was.

He glanced round, though unnecessarily. He spotted his companions over in their usual spot at the corner table. They always got the low wide ones with the crappy bendable chairs because the high skinny ones had metal stools that were designed solely for aesthetics, not comfort. Not to mention that none of the trio preferred the higher seats, because… well let's just say that there was a reason that none of them had tried out for the basketball team.

When he stomped over, Kili sighed and slumped into the chair across from his brother and Ori at the small table in the college café. He threw his pack onto the table with a noisy thump that made Ori look up from his book with a startled expression, and Fili gave him a glare from over the top of his laptop, a big black dino of technology, with a little golden band of light glowing in the center of the back of the screen.

"That bad, huh?" Fili asked with his eyes back on the screen. He had his European history text book open on the table amongst a mess of loose notes, and a cup of black coffee to his right that had gone cold.

"Worse," Kili said hopelessly. He sunk down further so that he was staring at his brother and their friend with his chin on his chest and his butt sliding off the chair.

"Your research essay for Prof. Balin not going too well?" Ori asked politely, guessing that the swarthy young man probably hadn't even started the assignment that was due on Wednesday.

"Haven't even cracked open the chapter yet," Kili said, confirming Ori's suspicions. "But that's not what's bothering me."

Fili had looked up again from his laptop.

"You haven't started?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. "Kili, we've had a week to do this history assignment! I've been at it forever and I'm not even done yet," Fili gestured to the work splayed out on the table in front of him.

Kili waved his hand and shrugged. Fili noticed that he winced a bit, and he had a dark bruise forming on the corner of his jaw… How did…?

"I'll get to it eventually," Kili said. Ori and Fili both glanced at each other, knowing that 'eventually' would probably mean the night before it was due. "Besides, Ori's already done, shouldn't be too hard," Kili said nodding towards the quiet and meek young man.

Fili rolled his eyes.

"That's because Ori's a freaky little genius. No offense," Fili said, pointing the last part at a blushing Ori.

Kili sat up and leaned across the table so that he was intruding Fili's space.

"Don't you want to know what happened?" Kili asked with so much baiting that Fili was surprised that there wasn't a fish hook sticking out of his brother's mouth.

"Probably not," Fili said as he reached over and took a swig of coffee. He cringed at the nasty coldness and put it back in its place by his computer. "And I have to start working on my presentation for Mr. Gand's world affairs class right after I finish with this, so just hurry up and spill."

Kili tilted his head to the left and raised a brow.

"I thought that was due in like two weeks."

"No, that's my group project for my intro to student government with Professor Elrond on Mondays and Wednesdays. My solo presentation for WA is due Thursday." Fili put his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion. "God, this semester is stressing me out…"

"I know what you mean," Ori chirped. Fili looked at him.

"I bet," Fili said with a sympathetic smile. "What, don't you have like six classes this semester?"

Ori shook his head.

"No, I had to drop one at the beginning of this month because I had to start working again."

"So which ones do you have left?"

"Umm, besides advanced euro with you guys, I have accounting 106 with Prof. Gloin, as well as his personal finance class on Fridays, Dr. Oin's intro to the practical applications of herbology in modern medicine, and the dean ended up letting me take my brother's child development class after all."

Fili nodded.

"That's cool they let you do that, seeing how he's your brother. That's a crap ton of classes though, for a second semester."

"Yeah," Ori said rubbing his neck. "But I needed the minimum to get financial aid."

"Oh," Fili said uncomfortable suddenly. Fili and Kili had both gotten into their first choice school (Together, miraculously. I had taken just the right amount of slacking on Fili's part his last two years of high school, and just the right amount of Kili working his ass off for them to graduate in the same year.) And all of their tuition was paid for by their parents.

Ori, on the other hand, who had the grades to get into several private schools, didn't have the cash to enroll. So he had ended up coming to his fifth choice here in his home town instead. Fili and Kili had met him in their European history class this semester. They never discussed finical issues though.

It was kinda sad to think about how hard Ori worked tutoring for minimum wage at the community college in the next town over in Dale, and his brother teaching here at the university, and yet they still were scraping by on the barest necessities.

That and Fili had heard that their other brother had just gotten out of the slammer again for the second time in the last few years. Fili recalled something about him being a crook who'd pleaded that he was just trying to feed his family when he testified. He's actually been caught here on campus while he was visiting Ori and Dori. Officer Dwalin (the on campus cop) had caught his stealing iPhones and tablet in the student center. Though it made Ori uncomfortable and Fili would never mention it, he did believe the part about just wanting to provide for his family…

"Hello…" Kili said waving his hands in front of their faces. "Doesn't ANYONE want to know WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?!" He made a puppy face and put his hand to his chest like his heart had broken.

Fili rolled his eyes and shut his laptop, figuring he wasn't going to get anything done until his own brother was finished with his histrionics.

"Kili, you really should try out for the drama company, I have a feeling that you'd be queen in no time," Fili said as he laid his chin on his folded hands.

Kili stuck his tongue out at his brother and Ori kept his nose stuck in his accounting text book, probably figuring that he could at least try to ignore them and get some work done.

Kili sucked in a breath like a small child when they get really excited and get ready to say a lot really quickly. Which he did.

"Well, right after wood shop with Bofur, you know I have archery out on the back range, well, I decided to head over there early to get set up and snag the best equipment, well, when I got there, there was already someone there, and they had their back to me, some skinny little bean pole, from the 101 coarse I figured, well, I went and grabbed my gear and kinda gave them some space, picked a target down a couple rows, you know, so, I was like, firing along, waiting for class to start, yatta yatta, and I happen to glance down the range at the other person, and it's this chick, right, and not just any chick, but this smoking hot babe, long red hair and skinny little bod, and she'd lining 'em up and smacking the bull like nobody's business, and I was like 'damn, dats haut," and so anyway class started a little while later, and the students started showing up and it was like 11:07 and the teach wasn't there yet and he's never late right-"

Fili smacked his hand suddenly over his brother's mouth, careful of the strange bruise on his jaw, and then slowly released it as he said:

"Kili. Suck. In."

Kili glared for having his story interrupted, but Fili could see that he was panting a little bit. He did go a little slower after that. For a moment.

"Anyway. So Mr. Bard hadn't shown up yet, and then the girl who had gotten there before me announced that she was our sub for the day. Name was something like Tally or Tarry, whatever, name doesn't matter." Fili rolled his eyes. "Anyway, we were going along, and she was giving us a lesson on stance, which is really dumb if you think about it, it's not that hard, and that's like really basic stuff, and I can't believe that even after I talked to the dean that they're making me take this stupid 102 course with stupid rubber tipped arrows, even though I tested into the 110-"

"Maybe you with sharp steel objects make the faculty nervous," Ori whispered to the pages of his book.

"Anyway, so we were going along pretty good, and we finally got to fire at will after the first hour. I was doing pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself, and I got the babe- uh, the professor, to notice. And I was totally rocking it, and then all of the sudden this twiggy, all legs, blond bastard-"

"Hey!" Fili said, indignant.

"-Comes strutting in and says that he's _new_ and just got off the _wait list_ and _blah blah blah_… Well, the b- the professor starts explaining what we were doing and whatever. Well, this guy started totally hitting on the professor, like shamelessly. And she started making googly eyes and he was puffing out his skinny little chest. It made me sick. So I went over to him later in the hour and… well I…"

Kili actually paused and, surprisingly, started to blush in embarrassment.

"Spit it out, bro," Fili said hurriedly. He told himself that he was only in a hurry to shut Kili up, not anxious about his ridiculous story.

"Well… I… I challenged him to a duel."

Fili blinked.

"You did WHAT?" Fili asked with widening eyes.

Kili looked sheepish, and Fili thought he heard Ori try to cover up a snort.

"Well, it just seemed like the thing to do," Kili said his shoulders sinking. Fili made a face and tried not to bust up laughing.

"So did ye win the fair maidens hand?" Fili said with an old accent, getting another chuckle from Ori.

"Shove off," Kili said with a half frown.

Fili did laugh a little.

"Ahaha! Ah, little brother, you watch entirely too much TV," Fili said shaking his head.

"Do not," Kili objected. He started to pout again so Fili nudged him.

"Come on, what happened at your little show down?"

"Well," Kili started again without pause. "We were pretty evenly matched, I hate to admit, though I'd never lie about another man's skills with a bow- but then, about six shots in… he said that I was doing well for someone with such stubby arms. So I called him a see-through bastard, and he made a crack about my mother… and I…"

"Oh for God's sake, get to the point already!" meek little Ori said, surprising them all as he slammed his book closed on the table.

"Well," Kili actually swallowed. Now Fili was getting nervous. Fili knew that look on his brother's face. It was the one that he wore when he had set mother's best doilies aflame, and smashed open the porcelain cookie jar, and cut off all the cat's fur, and countless other troubles that he had gotten himself into.

"Kili… What did you do."

"I… Decked him."

Ori and Fili's jaws hit the table.

Kili sat there staring from one to the next, his expression of pleasure in having a story to tell moving to worry. Where there had been a giddy Kili, now was a Kili that realized that maybe he'd screwed up.

Fili recovered first.

"KILI!" Fili shouted, gaining the attention of a few passer byes and some of the occupants of other tables.

"Kili, you know that there's a no violence policy here," Ori said quickly in his serious tutoring and scolding voice.

"I know," Kili said as cringed he ran his fingers through his hair and tipped his chair back on its hind feet.

"KILI!" Fili said again, for a moment not able to come up with anything better. Then he thought of something brilliant. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!"

"I don't know…" Kili said. "He just pissed me off."

"Do you want to get kicked out of here?!" Fili hissed.

"No," Kili said quickly. "I just…"

"Let your pecker get the better of you?" Ori supplied innocently.

Kili scowled at this, but in all honesty didn't argue.

"Kili," Fili said again. "What happened."

"I don't know… I just punched him in the gut as he was prepping to take his next shot… He hit back, we started going at it… the professor broke it up and told us we'd be hearing from admin. She was pretty pissed at both of us." Kili didn't think that was fair considering that it was the blond bastard that had started it, technically.

Fili sighed and put his head in his hands. Well… that explained the cringing and the bruise…

"What am I going to do with you?" he asked.

Kili hung his head.

"I'm sorry…" he said. "I don't know what to do…"

Fili looked through his fingers and saw that his brother did actually look remorseful. It tempered his anger a little bit.

They sat there for a moment in awkward silence, nobody really making eye contact.

Then Fili sat up straight again and took a breath.

"Well," Fili decided, "might as well go talk to talk to the dean now. No use in waiting for them to find you."

Kili peaked up at his older brother.

"And tell him what?"

"That you're sorry. That you acted idiotically and that you don't know what came over you. That you accept whatever punishment that he deems appropriate."

"What about the other bastard?" Kili asked somewhat juvenilely.

Fili narrowed his eyes and shook his head.

"He's none of your concern. Just worry about fixing _your_ mess for now."

Kili didn't like it, but he nodded anyway, knowing that Fili was probably right.

"Yeah… ok."

Fili sighed again and his eyes went soft for his beaten puppy dog of a baby brother.

"Come on tough guy, I'll go with you before my world affairs class starts," Fili said standing up and sliding his laptop into his pack and shuffling all his papers into his binder.

"Really?" Kili asked looking a tiny bit more hopeful now.

Fili smiled slightly.

"Yeah, I'll help you dig your ass out of the fire pit. 'Sides, if I don't, who will?" Fili asked.

Kili smiled and gathered up his uneaten food and dumped it into his bag, haphazardly wrapping a couple of napkins around the donut before tossing it in with the rest. Fili made a face at him as he neatly tucked his stuff away and zipped up his own bag, carefully folding the fabric flap over the zipper. Kili didn't even notice.

"I guess we'll see you later Ori," Fili said, patting the table as he and Kili got set to head over to the main building offices.

"See you guys latter," Ori said. "And good luck."

Fili and Kili headed out of the café, and then out of the student center.

They were almost halfway across campus when Kili looked over at Fili with serious and kinda sad eyes.

"I really am sorry for causing trouble."

Fili just smiled and gave him a noogy. Kili laughed a little and pulled away.

"I'm just glad you're ok, you big dumbass," Fili said playfully.

They both continued on with small but worried smiles towards the dean's office.

As they walked into the office building, (customarily waving to the crazy old janitor named Bifur on their way in), Fili hoped that he could beg Dean Oakenshield to not throw his little brother out of the university, and Kili was wondering if it was too late to score a date with the hotty substitute.

**Note: That was fun! Much better that writing some stinky ol' essay. Let me know what you thought!**


End file.
